The Mirror room is making you aware of all the data you produce. Who owns all this data, and are we able to reclaim them? The Mirror room is part of the FabCity in Amsterdam, a temporary sustainable urban area, where young creative’s present their solutions for current urban issues.

The panel says: ‘’Examine and experience the pros and cons of our data-based life, and the effects on your privacy, social interaction, health and security.’’ This innovative Mirror installation offers you a whole new experience on what it feels like to become data.

When you enter, you type in your name; then you have to stand in the middle of the room. You are surrounded by mirrors and I felt strange not knowing what would happen next. An electronic voice welcomed me by my name and then begins by giving my physical details: my age, my weight, my height, and my heart pulsations, my BMI while some images are projected on the mirrors…

The next step is kind of surprising, hearing an AI talking to me reminds me of the movie “Her”: where people start building relationships with Artificial Intelligence. I had the feeling of entering the future. Still standing, alone in the middle of the room, a succession of simulations and animations, are scrolling around you. Immerse you in a strange atmosphere, one that I never experienced before. At this point, I still didn’t know what’s the purpose of all of this until the electronic voice came back to me and give me my “data profile”. Before leaving the room, the voice asked me if I agreed to make my data public or not… I had to answer by looking at the YES or at the NO.

The computers in the room registered all my emotions during all the experience and transformed them into data. It analyzed my physical data, tested my fear, my preferences… and established a profile that was handed out in print while exiting the room. So, who do you see when you look into the mirror? There is a difference between what you perceive and what you are. The experience makes you realize that WE ARE DATA : there is your reflection, who you think you are but it makes you realize you are also an infinite composition of data.

Well, the program is still experimental and not totally accurate but the purpose of what is called an “art experience“ by its creators is to make us realize how collecting selling and using data, even if we’re not aware of it, can have a profound impact on our personal and professional life.

Indeed, while more and more applications are capable to analyze our physical condition and emotions, imagine the infinite possibilities that could give. All depend on who has access to our data and what are our rights on them? Governments, companies could have some advantages to use our data…

Brands could also use our emotional data on a marketing purpose… Reading our emotions is becoming the next challenge for brands as emotions represent a huge factor in the decision-making process… And thanks to data collection they would be able to build algorithms to predict customers preferences and likelihood of purchasing from their emotions.

It’s already happening, recently Belgium police advised not use Facebook’s new reactions buttons as they consider it as a new way for Facebook to use your profile on a marketing purpose. With more information about your mood, reactions, emotions, it’s easier for advertisers to reach you at the right moment and at the right emplacement. By creating algorithms that could make calculations on your mood, considering your reaction to a post. However, the technology could be use in a positive sense too. As applications could analyze in an early stage a disease and suggest a cure. It could determine easily your skin or heart conditions…

The most important is that we keep the right to control our own data and to be aware of who and when they are used. Privacy regulations are becoming more and more essential and urgent in this world where all are data have the possibility to become public.

‘People should realize how collecting, selling and using data even if they don’t know this is happening, can have a profound impact on their personal and professional life.’

But once, you cross borders and discover different cultures, meet people with different backgrounds and origins, you suddenly realize that these problems are not reserved to your country but are the same everywhere. And everybody is doing the same, blaming their governments… But what if it is not our national government that we should blame, but something more global? And what if the solutions to these problems don’t lie in the hand of our governments but in our hands? As citizen of a country or citizen of the world.

Six weeks ago, a citizen movement called “Nuit Debout” (Up all Night), was born in France. This movement was born spontaneously after demonstrations against a new law changing the labour code. From then, the movement took more and more importance in the whole country; at least that what I thought. However, following this kind of events is quite complicated; an interpretation can be radically different from media to another. So how to get informed? What is really happening in these nightly sessions in Paris?

Thanks to Periscope, I could follow in live some of the general meetings organized on the Place of the Republic. Periscope is new mobile application, considered as social media, like twitter, facebook and instagram. It allows users to broadcast in live what they are filming. During the first nights of Nuit Debout some random participants decided to broadcast. Since then periscope broadcast took more and more importance. As a consequence, in addition to the thousands of people present on the Place of the Republic; tens of thousands people were following the events in live. And participated…

Thanks to Periscope I could see with my own eyes and make my own judgement from abroad. Periscope has become what twitter and facebook meant for the Arab spring. It enabled young people to gather and share information. Information diffusion is no longer reserved for specialized media. Everybody can participate, present or abroad.

So I witnessed some people with real claims and a willingness to change the political system. Immigration, education, economy, women rights, freedom were some of the claims during these meetings. All of these people don’t necessarily have the same political ideas or claims but I could feel that they were gathered around the same willingness of a more democratic system and the need to feel united with other citizen without any political claim (I mean no political color).
However, in media I could read totally different statements depreciating the movement: it was not a spontaneous movement but something organized by left-hand parties; outbreak of violence; no real claims; young idiots… In most of French media we can read anything that can discredit the movement. Most of political figures also denigrate it. Media supporting the movement exist but are really rare and not followed by the most. Consequently, having a proper judgement on this new phenomenon touching my country is not an easy task. Who is right? Media? Politics? Demonstrators? All these channels of diffusion, all different point of views make it confusing…

But I think that, in the end, the real purpose of this movement is or, at least, should be to call into question the global neoliberalism in function since the end of WWII. This system had its glory time but repetitive crisis prove that it’s certainly not adapted to the world anymore: climate change, wars, extreme poverty, growing inequalities… those are new stakes that this system struggle to handle. Traditional political parties are not willing to change how things work to face those issues, in hand with big corporations they keep running the world on the same model, driven by economic profit and growth. But we can feel the change from the population, the way people vote… Growing abstinence or vote for “untraditional” parties or candidates prove that citizens have enough of the current picture. Podemos in Spain, Syriza in Greece, Front National in France or Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in the United States. All these examples illustrate radically different values and point of views. But for me, they are all some ways to contest established system and its failures; they are just blaming different persons and causes each time…

What about the future of Nuit Debout? I see interesting points : the movement is still up after more than six weeks. It doesn’t have any official political etiquette; this confirms the spontaneity of the movement and makes it a real citizen movement. Indeed, if the movement last and grows I wish it can be an opportunity to give more voice to citizens in certain political choices. It could lead to the creation of a citizen assembly where random people can have a word to say in political decisions at local, national and international scales. This assembly could bring environmental and social issues in the centre of political decisionmaking.

I hope the movement is keeping its independence. That it is not adpoted by other exsisting political parties or the creation of a new political party. For me, Nuit Debout is a social movement. It is the only way to disrupt the established order, that has reigned for so long. To finally bring on the table new priorities like sustainability, well-being of people on public debates instead of issues like economic growth…

However, it didn’t succeed to be popular in public opinion… Is this media’s fault or does it come from the movement itself? Hard to tell from where I am. Maybe it´s because it has been stigmatized as an extreme left movement, violence had been highlighted in media, which is inherent to every social movement… I keep thinking that it was a really interesting initiative as I believe that from now on, citizens should have more and more voice in public debates. Nuit Debout proved that it is possible to gather people in order to make things change. Besides, it´s also an opportunity for bottom-up initiatives in which I put a lot of hope to build the future of our societies rather than a change from politics. Public debates make people share ideas and suggestions on how to make the changes that they want to see which can lead to concrete outcomes.

And now they are calling for its internationalization “Global Debout” is launched. Calling people to gather in all places of the world on the 15th of May. Like Yanis Varoufakis (former finance minister of Greece) with DIEM25 (for Democracy in Europe Movement 2025), Nuit Debout is willing to bring together people for a common cause regardless of borders. Nobody knows how those projects will evolve but it is still, an interesting phenomenon to follow . Thanks to this Global calling I have finally the opportunity to participate to it and see concretely what it will be about here in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Berlin,Budapest… Have you ever lived in or visited one of these cities? If you have, I’m sure you could feel the motion. These European cities are ahead of the world when it comes to innovation and ideas to build more sustainable cities.

This is not only about infrastructures but people also seem happier! For example, it’s clear that riding a bike to work in a city with fresh air (like in Amsterdam or Copenhagen) is much more pleasant than spending hours in traffic jams in a polluted city! These cities reflect the necessity of our societies to change. Environmental issues, social and economic crises are currently affecting the world. With a constantly increasing urban population (54% of the population live in urban area, +2% per years)); it’s time for cities to work about tomorrow urban life. Because it’s now clear that we won’t be able to feed, house, provide energy to everyone in the future with our current system.

Hopefully, innovative people are working every day to build better cities. For example, you can visit the Fabcity (“Together we make the city of tomorrow”) in Amsterdam; walking in there feels like a preview of how our future cities will look like… In this little “village” you can find people working on the project of today; for tomorrow, to make sustainable cities. Now that we know that we are running out of many resources, climate change is already here… Urban garden, tiny houses, clean energy, electric cars represent the new face of our cities… Clean and self-sufficient. Moreover, well-being and happiness of the population is at the core of this transition!

Besides, to build these new cities, new forms of economy and politic are needed. Today, innovative solutions come more and more from citizens like you and me, innovation is becoming independent from big companies and governments. We can talk about bottom-up initiatives, initiatives that come from citizens or group of citizens and integrate the economy and system then. This gives independence to communities; circular economy is at the core. Economy that produces no waste and pollution, recycle and reuse everything, with a preference for local production and consumption; on their way to become the “new normal”. Soon, we can imagine that cities will become self-sufficient. Are we slowly going away from this globalised system?

Visiting this Fabcity was so inspiring and motivating as I felt totally comfortable in this atmosphere: engineers was working next to people building houses or people gardening in the same purpose of making a community live sustainably while I could enjoy drinking a soda in the sun at the “local café”.

In this transition, social ties are more important than before which contribute to the happiness of a society as a reflection of solidarity and mutual aid: peer-to-peer and local consumption tighten link between people. Economic crisis and political distrust make us look at each other to find solutions.

Besides, with solar,wind energy, urban gardening, it’s clear that we are tightening our links with nature…and maybe those changes was what missing to our modern societies to make the world better. Indeed, that’s maybe something that was forgotten during last centuries, growing individualism made us forget the name of our neighbours and industrialisation with mass consumption made us forget where our food was coming from. And that’s why I felt so comfortable visiting this Fabcity, because we can imagine that in the future it will be like that: people working for their community.

Population is growing fast, climate change is more and more visible, so we have to act now! Hopefully, when we see how fast innovation and technology are evolving, we can only be optimistic about the future of our cities and societies! However, there is still a long way to go before this transition impacts the whole world, but it has to start somewhere!

Of course, no matter what you want to achieve, you will be confronted to many obstacles, you will doubt and be afraid to fail. However, don’t be afraid of failure, successful people often describe failure as a condition to succeed. You can learn a lot from failure. Failure is a need to go further. And that’s clearly true; you’ll never know how far you can go unless you try one more time. If people keep failing it is only because they give up at some point… Because at the end, when you try again, you only have two possibilities, fail again or succeed. And if you keep going, you will certainly find the path to success.

Don´t wait this moment of your life when you´ll realize that nothing will never be like before to fulfill your deepest dreams and desires as long as you can. As long as you have the physical capabilities, do not let yourself being stopped by any obstacle.

Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm – Winston Churchill

We dreamed about a new Mt Everest adventure, and were working on it for the last 1,5 years. But no financial partner was really willing to take the risk, neither a broadcaster. In February we launched a Kickstarter campaign. After this failed we felt like giving up. It wasn’t meant to be. Was it not the right time? Is it not possible? We could only answer this with no and we decided to just GO! Not giving up and make it happen anyway. We had already spent a lot of time and money on this project, so not going there was not an option for us. We just had to find different ways to do it.

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have – Thomas Jefferson

So here we are, last Sunday our cameraman and sound engineer left for Kathmandu. There they teamed up with Lynne and Noel Hanna and will spend 2 months on Mount Everest together to realize this incredible production. We still don´t know if it will be a success or not, if people will like it or not, but at least we didn´t stay on a failure and kept going. And we believe in it!

With never giving up you have to keep believing and hoping. It goes hand in hand with failure’s acceptance. You are the only one that can put limits, barriers to yourself. If you keep believe after failures it will bring you further…and then, you’ll learn to never give up. You cannot give up on something that counts for you only because you failed at it once. It would avoid you to torment yourself with those “What if…?” that we all know. These “what if?” will prevent you to fully enjoy and appreciate your life. And guess what? I believe that the best way to prevent them is … to never give up!

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. – Thomas A. Edison

It is funny to think that this production is in a way to giving also others the opportunity to experience an Everest’s expedition, a true experience of perseverance. It makes you suffer, doubt so you can go beyond your limits to achieve what you want to achieve. You’ll see that once you crossed all obstacles: face extreme cold, adapt yourself to the low oxygen level,… standing on the top of the world make you feel more alive than never. You will forget all you have been through to arrive there so you can fully enjoy the moment; the relief, the beauty around you, immensity. You’ll see that all your efforts, sweat, fears can lead to something that really worth it. That is why we hope we’ll be able to share with you all these unique sensations through virtual reality.

Meanwhile, you can follow how the production is going on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram the team will keep you informed on a daily basis of the expedition’s progression in real time!

Fall seven times, stand up eight – Japanese proverb

Working to fulfill a dream gives energy to your life…

Nothing should stop you to build the life that you want. Make projects that make you feel alive and never giving in on them. Never let a place for regrets and complaints in your life, it’s too short and fragile for that. Nothing is impossible, the best like the worst, keep that in mind.

Recent documentaries and movies dismantled the hidden face of finance and banking sector and showed how they truly are. The wolf of Wall Street, the big short, Inside Job unveiled some complex and scary pieces of info about this “big money industry” on which we have no influence but can have so much impact. Speculation, hedge fund managers, private equity fund managers, real estate fund managers, and future and shorts… The industry is often depicted as a dehumanized world in which the only goal is to make more money.

What do I know about banking? Not so much, I hope the bank keeps my money safe but don’t try to understand what is behind this complex system. However, is it okay to know so little about what are banks doing with our money? As an individual always looking for ways to make this place on earth more pleasant and better, I believe that we SHOULD be aware and interested of what our banks are doing.

What if the bank invests in the nuclear arms industry industries or very polluting industries, as many of them do?A recent Belgium’s study revealed that our money placement, were at the top of our carbon footprint with 100 tons of CO2 per year. That is so much more than our consumption and production footprint so we should care about the banks investments. We can make a choice by choosing a bank that doesn’t do this kind of investment. Big improvements have been made in this direction, particularly by the DIVEST movement; an international movement which only goal is to put away investment from polluting and fossil energy corporations through petitions and campaigns. I believe that these kind of initiatives are necessary to build a better world. Finally, changing our behaviors, sharing our beliefs and international movements of this type have all the same common purpose to influence the settled globalized system runs by big corporations.

Luckily some “ethical banks” are emerging; these banks are working according to the same model as the usual ones but with a different guideline: transparency and trustful policies. Their first objective is not to make profit and enrich the elite but invest and support actions and companies with social and environmental purposes; letting their customers aware of the bank’s activities. Then, choosing a more responsible bank can be a way to show that we don´t agree with the current system and would like to make it change. They are more and more present and popular in Europe.

But still they are part of the financial sector and work on the same model. I would like to explore if we can do without them? So what are our possibilities?

Alternatives to the current banking system exist; new currencies are emerging with communitarian monetary systems. A good example is the district of Brixton in London which has its own “Brixton pound” with its own printed bills and coins. I see these initiatives as a clever way to break the globalized consensus settled in the world today coming with a lot of advantages but some undesirable effects too. It reconciles communities, reduces the production circuit and proves that pull ourselves away from the usual national and international bank system is possible. On top of that, they personalized their money appearance and its 10 pounds bill has the face of David Bowie printed on it; which is much more fun than the Queen! Those solutions are more sustainable as the economy doesn’t only profit to the elite but encourage local economy and small businesses, while limiting environmental impact.

But what to do with your savings? Today, interest rates are so low and economy so fragile that it´s difficult to trust banks for our savings. Savings that we want to make for our children to have an education or to save for a nice holiday. Some people would just take out their money from the bank and hide it under their mattress. But actually, our possibilities are wider today. Crowdfunding platforms and projects like ‘kickstarter’ and ‘kiss kiss bank bank’ for example are a good way to place your money in projects that you believe in. However, you will not be able to send your children to university through crowdfunding invests. So, if you keep looking, there are still other solutions to make profit from your invests… Going in this direction, new crowdfunding platforms like www.oneplanetcrowd.com allows you to invest in some startups and businesses’ projects with the possibility to get good percentage from it in return. Or, invest directly in renewable energy for example seems like a responsible option too to make profit if you’re concerned about the environment and sustainable solutions to fossil fuels and want to slow the bank industry’s power.

So, making businesses, profit, investments, savings without banks is possible; collectivity and sharing have a lot of promises.

Since a few months I have passed my 40’s. I become more and more aware that a lot has changed in those years that I have enjoyed on this planet. More than I could imagine….It brings the question to mind what in the coming 40 years, more will change. What are the game changers and what will be solutions to the big problems that the last decades this so called time of prosperity have brought.

To show you how times have changed and at the same time unravelled the mist of so-called prosperity I take you to my childhood. In my street where I grew up, in Amsterdam in the nineties there was a bakery, a milkman with fresh cheese. A tobacco shop, a grocery store with great fruit and vegetables, and a store that we called ‘’Jantje van alles’’. All these shops had everything that a normal household needed. And these products were packaged for you in paper bags.

With the coming of the supermarkets, these shops disappeared and the immersive introduction of plastic became a reality. And without exaggerating plastic waste became one of the most critical environmental issues in the world. The “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” is described as a 7th continent and is a product of our way of living. It is made out of plastic and has direct impact on our ecosystem, livelihood and food chain.

Plastic is still an easy and cheap material to produce for industries and with the coming of 3D printers’, plastic has a bright new future. Knowing that only 10% of plastic is recycled, it’s time to raise the alarm and change our way of production and consumption.

A few years ago I was not so much aware of the impact of these changes. The realisation of fact that all you buy is packaged in plastic. Makes you aware of your role as consumer. With the effect that I can’t do any shopping without having guilty feelings.

Luckily more and more people has the same guilty feelings and are trying to have a more responsible behaviour and reduce considerably their wastes. This is just about new habits to adopt and more reflection when you are doing your groceries or throwing your garbage away.

It started with bringing your own bag to the store, and re-used the ones you had. Separate the plastic waste, from the rest of the garbage. But that is not enough. A new mentality is needed, to avoid plastic packaging. By using paper bags and bringing your own sacks again. And even then you can’t avoid paradoxical situations: “should I choose the organic cucumber in plastic packaging” or “the non-organic one without packaging”. When you want to have a responsible behaviour, this kind of decisions matters: you have to choose between supporting this “plastic mania” or eating these pesticides poisoning our lands.

Some still see a positive side to plastics as an opportunity for sustainable development. It is actually a cheap material that we can reuse and reuse again through recycling. Some entrepreneur and communities are inspired to change from a linear to a circular relationship with plastic. This is always motivating to see people thinking out of the box and looking for alternatives solutions for the good of our planet.

An inspiring story is that of Wilco and Edwin from Clean 2 Antarctica, they are convinced we can have a zero waste community. And to prove that they will go on expedition to the South Pole in a vehicle entirely built from recycled plastics and powered by solar energy. This is a way to demonstrate that “Zero Waste” and “Zero emissions” are possible… Imagine the relief of clean air and clean oceans! It is not only their opinion but also that of the younger generation. That is why children in this project to collect plastic waste and shape them through 3D printing in a message to the world. This project is a message of hope showing the promises of plastic recycling and clean technology to live in a cleaner planet. It is just one of many great projects only here in the Netherlands. Possibilities are infinite with recycling and reusing. Each time that you are closing your garbage you can make sure that nothing belong to the recycle bin and ask yourself in which way you could reuse these wastes. You will awake your creative spirit and reduce your environmental impact. Give to your wastes a happy ending, a second life, much more brighter than ending in one bird’s stomach.

And although older generations and mine will have to a make a major change in their behaviour, the hopeful finding is that when I can’t separate my garbage I feel awkward. As doing something really wrong. That is in my point of view the confirmation that humans a custom animals. And with a little effort we can change the beautiful world around us.

Without knowing we take advantage of others people ideas’ every day. Whether it is as simple as a fork or as elaborate as a major scientific breakthrough as the last discovery at CERN with the particle Z(4430). It ALL started with the conception of an idea. We can imagine that someone in ancient Egypt or the Qijia culture (2400-1900 BC in China), had the brilliant idea for a fork and courage to speak out. He thought that the idea would make life better if we would have a fork, and he spoke with his neighbor…and he or she found the concept of a fork a great idea and gave some suggestion of what materials to use or how to make it. And so the first fork was made. Maybe not the best….but it was the start of an evolution, to make something better.

Many philosophers have given their input of ideas and how to understand the world around us, and this is still needed to interpret the actualities of the present daily life. Idea has the power to have impact for the future in the positive sense. Ideas although it is something untouchable can be very powerful.

This power is only created if the idea is shared, and transmitted and communicated in some way. If it is not shared the idea keeps imprisoned in its concept chamber. Ideas need to be shaped and nourished, as anything that grows in this world. Indeed, evolution is not about protecting ideas, it is about connecting them together. Like bees pollinating flowers, people spread ideas to grow something new.

What is incredible today is that we are more and more aware that the whole world forms one global entity in which we are more and more connected to each other. Technology and innovation bring us endless possibilities of sharing ideas; and that’s for our best.

One of the possibilities is by participating or following TED.com. A place where you can read that Ideas are like a virus but with inspiration instead of sneezing. Through the diffusion of short talks, this platform offers people coming from different places in the world and having different backgrounds the possibility to share their ideas to the whole world. And the unique purpose of this is to spread ideas to inspire people. We can never have enough inspiration; inspiration is the cradle of new ideas and creativity.

In short, ideas cause ideas.

And March is the International Ideas Month, so let’s just celebrate and appreciate all those ideas burgeoning all around the world. I challenge you to use this month to listen to people’s ideas, get inspired and finally, share your own ideas. Coming spring is a good time to explore your creativity. So grab your notebook everywhere you go because as we all experienced it, ideas often strike us like a flash and then just go away.

Today, we celebrate “Battery Day”. Why celebrating batteries? Actually, when you think about it, it makes sense. Take this day to imagine your life with no batteries for a second…You are feeling low, aren’t you? Indeed, it would mean no cars, phones, laptops, cameras, remote controls and the list goes on and on. Plugging in our devices to recharge is now part of most people daily routine. So, we might take it for granted but batteries are everywhere, they are now irreplaceable in our present and future. We can use this day to appreciate all that battery allows us to do and to think of recycling all those dead batteries that you leave in this old drawer.

As we know that fossil fuel’s era comes to its end, a whole new bright future is building up. A world where we hope that coal burning stoves and nuclear plants will soon be nothing more than a memory. A world where those smokestacks on our roofs, will not embody our emissions anymore; but just an architectural souvenir of these time. We can already perceive this change, through latest batteries’ evolutions. Tesla’s innovations such as power up cars and houses (Powerwall battery) reduce our direct emissions to zero by cutting exhaust pipes and equipped our roofs with solar panels. Clean fuels are on their way to build the future of our electric network! And this shift stands on the ability to store energy; in short, on batteries!

Besides, as adventurous movie producers, the battery question is omnipresent especially in some conditions where plugging in batteries as we do home is not an option. Imagine how crucial this question can be, while recording some footage in the middle of Himalaya. All our equipment (lights, cameras…) requires batteries. That’s why we have to think of the best way to manage it, as keeping our impact to the environment at a minimum. We own solar panel chargers for example so that there is no need to carry a bunch of batteries. In this energetic transition era, in which energy storage is at its core; more and more solutions appear to us; such as Activeon Solar X, this new solar-powered action camera taking 70% of its charge from the sun in just 30 minutes.

By the way, you should take a look at our whole new Kickstarter campaign on www.climbeverestvr.com that will take you to the summit of Mount Everest through a virtual reality experience. This experience will immerge you into this expedition; experiencing beautiful landscapes, extreme weather conditions…You have the opportunity to share this experience with real adventurers and all you have to do is to recharge the battery of your smartphone or virtual reality gear and sit comfortably!

The feeling when you get up early to go for a run, do some yoga or meditation let’s you feel like you rise above the world. You just dragged yourself out of your comfy bed to commit to something. And when you accomplish what you targeted yourself to do. Oh boy, this feeling leads to a fantastic motivation for the rest of the day. (Especially when it is combined with an epic sunrise)

Famous athletes and successful people also cherish their early morning routines. They create their own ritual that motivates and inspires them. Tony Robbins has an “hour of power”, which includes motivational sayings and visualization. Steve Jobs always asked himself if he would be happy with his planned day if it was his last day on earth. Motivational speaker Eric Thomas wakes up every morning at 3AM.

He says: “Sleep is the new broke. If u only have 24 hours in a day, your success is depend upon how you spend the 24.”

It’s nothing new that the early risers have big advantages, to the sleepy colleagues. It is easier to focus when the world outside is to tired to interrupt you; there is no chaos and noise. Your creativity is highest after waking; the preferential cortex is most active. All your ideas are cleaner as the mind hasn’t yet been troubled with daily issues. So it’s simple to connect to the flow of creativity.

When you rise with the sun it gives you more balance in the body. When you think of it, its logical. You basically copy the body’s natural rhythm, which leads to peace and a balanced life.
There is something magical about the hours before dawn. Waking up early, gives you time for yourself or to catch up on things you are behind on, it makes you calmer for the rest of the day. You have a head start on the rest of the world.

I believe that “willing” is the key. It will be hard to wake up in the beginning. You always have that feeling you did not sleep enough. But once you train yourself in it, just by five minutes at the time, everybody can do this. Little steps, lead to bigger steps in the future. If you want to become an early riser you will be overflowing with joy. You may inspire others, so create your suitable ritual that inspire and motivate you.What would you do with the extra hours each day?

Now and then, there comes a time when the walls begin to close in. All the beautiful surroundings feel more like a barricade. Even with the most positive mood, it feels like a splash of cold water in your face again. When this trapped feeling somehow snuck in, its time to change perspective and hit that reset button.

When I pushed that button, I was ready to get inspired again. I tried to look around with a positive eye. For example; I saw my shoes next to the front door. Normally I would walk right passed them. But now, they were standing there, inviting me out. I looked at them as a motivation to move. I always like taking slow walks, the kind that make you notice things; like that clouds are never the same. So I went out and get that heart rate up and breath deeper than I can remember. I experience pure harmony with the fresh air on my skin. I could feel my spirit automatically loading with positively. After that simple walk outside, I have returned to myself, ready to take on another week. This change in the way I look at things will lead to more positivism in the daily life. Just find your place where the air is easy to breath.

Most people start new year as an opportunity to make a promise to themselves. But new years resolutions will be swallowed by the dark and depressing days of January. Well, we have already survived Blue Monday – we can fight some more. Focus on finding positivism and change perspective. The sun will break trough the clouds again. Even when it feels like you standing at the bottom of a valley and the only way is up the mountain. One foot after another, the climb is worth it. Just think of the incredible view on the top.
What do you need to think more positively?